YouSaid · the spoken record

Payal Kadakia

lines on the record: 106
first: 2020-06-29
most recent: 2020-06-29
sittings or episodes: 1
sources: podcast

Every line below is reproduced as it was said and linked to the record it came from. Nothing here is summarised or generated. Directory · Search · Corrections

“We're using different email addresses and signing up over and over again for the passport. They loved variety. And that was sort of this thing we stumbled upon accidentally, which was this idea that people really loved, you know, having this, you know, different classes to take and this motivation of I could really package my own workout routine together. So then we started thinking about what if this is something that needs to be recurring every month. So we did a survey with our users where we asked them if you could go back and do this product over and over again, use the passport month over month and visit your favorite studios, would you do it? And 95% of them said, yes, I would.”
2020-06-29 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · ClassPass: Payal Kadakia · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Course. Right. So the other thing we realized, which was very interesting, was people were buying this product with multiple email addresses. And we started getting yelled at from our studio owners who would call us and say, hey, you told me like customer X couldn't come back. I saw her again last week.”
2020-06-29 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · ClassPass: Payal Kadakia · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“So we finally started seeing reservations, which was a really great progress for us as a company. We started having people try these classes. They loved going to yoga on Monday, dance on Wednesday. Our studio owners, though were getting the raw end of the deal because the promise we had made to them was that 75% of people would come back to these studios. Now, what we were doing, every single time you went to class, we collected a rating review right from you on if you liked it, if you gave a class like a four or five, we would then retarget you with a package right from that studio directly. So, you know, people would try these classes and they weren't going back. We saw less than 10 to 15% of people go back to studios. And that was not fair, right? These studio owners were giving us these classes for free, but we're not getting people to come back and be loyalists. And bigger problem for me was.”
2020-06-29 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · ClassPass: Payal Kadakia · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“It just was an easier booking experience, right? I mean, that's like where technology really, I think, in our lives started coming alive. It's like sometimes it's easier to call a cap than Uber, but you still do Uber because it's like in your phone, right? And I think it was sort of that type of experience of people just saying, oh my God, this is all in one place. And we made it also easy, right? Like we would give information. We would have photos. It just felt more accessible to people in the way we were also presenting the information. And it felt exciting, right? to say, hey, like, let me sign up with my friend and we'll both do it together for a month. You know, it just felt like you were going on a journey together. And this kind of brings me back to having a value proposition and not just it being a search engine.”
2020-06-29 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · ClassPass: Payal Kadakia · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Correct. So you had 30 days, you came onto the site, you could see all the schedule information, and you basically got to stamp your passport with different studios.”
2020-06-29 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · ClassPass: Payal Kadakia · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“So it's $49. We had about 20 studios at the time we launched, and they were of different genres. So using your pass, you could go to up to 10. You had to be a new customer.”
2020-06-29 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · ClassPass: Payal Kadakia · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“So we started building another product called the Passport, and this was a 30 day product where people could go and try these one-off free classes that these studios were offering, all in one place. And because we had built so many of these integrations, what was nice is at least that part was done. So all that people had to do was go on.”
2020-06-29 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · ClassPass: Payal Kadakia · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, a year and a half in. We decided to go in a different direction. I mean, we downsized the team. I have to save cash. And I wasn't done. I wasn't done trying to solve the mission.”
2020-06-29 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · ClassPass: Payal Kadakia · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“So I think that's really what it is. Everyone I surveyed, if I said, do you want to do a yoga class 100% of people would say yes. If I told them, do you want to go tomorrow at 12 p.m., I would get like a 1% people who would convert. And so that was sort of the problem. It was this drop off that was happening when people actually were presented with the information in front of them, right? It was the brain cycles of which class do I go to? Is this the right class? Do I commit? Do I commit? Oh, no. Oh my God. Oh, and then it's $20? Forget it. So this was sort of the brain cycles of putting too many decisions in one place for someone that was not working, right? And so something with like airline tickets, like you already made the decision to go. Or if you're going to go eat, you're going to eat. Eating is a utility. Like you're going to eat, right? And that was the difference where working out and going to these classes are aspirational. I had to really motivate people to want to get out of their houses to go and try these.”
2020-06-29 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · ClassPass: Payal Kadakia · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“We started talking to the studio owners to understand more about what challenges they were facing. Many of them offered a first class for free, right? That was sort of their way of getting people in the door. And this was also when boutique fitness was starting to boom. So this is when we started to focus a little bit more on going towards fitness.”
2020-06-29 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · ClassPass: Payal Kadakia · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Start thinking about some new marketing tactics we could do. I remember, you know, we launched this promotion where we literally sent an email saying like, go to class for free and still no one went. So that's when I was like, okay, we have totally missed this. Something is wrong here. And that's when I knew we needed to start iterating and changing. So the first thing we started doing was going to our studio owners, right? So what we didn't do the first time was talk to the partners, right? We were kind of behind the screens and being, you know, thinking that tech was going to fix all of this, right? And that's when I realized tech does not fix all of this. This is a human behavior. I need to get someone off the couch physically to get them into a classroom. If I can't do that by talking to them and motivating them, there was no way technology was going to fix that, right? And so.”
2020-06-29 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · ClassPass: Payal Kadakia · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Exactly Exactly. So I call it the summer of buttons because that's really what we did. And it was kind of depressing. I mean, you know, we had once again like close to, this has been, by the way, about close to a year and a half, right? We had probably spent close to a half a million dollars at this point. And it's crickets and I didn't know what to do”
2020-06-29 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · ClassPass: Payal Kadakia · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Exactly the opposite. There was crickets, meaning no one went to any classes. We had probably 10 days go by before we got even one reservation. Yeah, it was heartbreaking. It was one of those moments where you start realizing all these false signals of success, right? I was like, all these people who compared this to open table. Right, exactly. And by the way, people were coming to the website, right? So the first thing we did was we thought, like, first of all, we wanted to make sure the buy button was working. Obviously, that's the first thing you check. You're like, is this going through? Yeah, is something wrong? Is there a click? We would test it. And then we thought it was maybe people couldn't see the buy button. So we would change the colors, change the shape. Yeah, exactly. So I call it the...”
2020-06-29 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · ClassPass: Payal Kadakia · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“You had photography classes on there, we had yoga classes, spin classes, we had a variety of different classes. We had about a million classes listed.”
2020-06-29 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · ClassPass: Payal Kadakia · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“To go live at the end of TechSar, so June of 2012, we have our big demo day. We're getting all this tech press. We launched the website.”
2020-06-29 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · ClassPass: Payal Kadakia · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Right, because it worked for Open Table and it worked for Seamless Web and it worked for ZocDoc. Why wouldn't it work for classes?”
2020-06-29 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · ClassPass: Payal Kadakia · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I like that. It was good aside from the fact that everyone messed up the I's and the T's all the time. Like even till this day, no one spells it right. So that was a problem. But, you know, that's sort of where it started. It was a mouthful, but we were, we got into tech stars. We were, our name was Classivity, the search engine, everything was called Classivity at the time.”
2020-06-29 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · ClassPass: Payal Kadakia · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Well, so when was this? I think in 2011, this is before we were in TechSars, we actually had to change our name because there was a company in Chicago. Started selling classes under the name of Dabble. So we actually overnight change our name and we couldn't think of anything. So we like literally were just scouring the word class with anything on GoDaddy and found classivity. So our second name was actually Classivity because it was class and activity together”
2020-06-29 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · ClassPass: Payal Kadakia · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Why combination textures are very similar? And this was the second class of New York City. So it was pretty new. But once again, you know, because there weren't that many startups yet. It was a great program because, I mean, I got to meet every incredible founder that, you know, in New York City and even folks who would come by from Silicon Valley through the program because they came to mentor, right? Because the startup community was much smaller at that time.”
2020-06-29 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · ClassPass: Payal Kadakia · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“100%. So they were open feeds. We were working with sort of scraping data if they weren't connected to something. So we were really trying to master was like sort of becoming like this Google, right, of class information.”
2020-06-29 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · ClassPass: Payal Kadakia · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“So at that time, and this is one of the mistakes we made, what we were really interested in was the information, like the schedule data, right? So we started doing was really integrating with the backend APIs that were integrated into the scheduling platforms these places were using.”
2020-06-29 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · ClassPass: Payal Kadakia · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“It wasn't just actually just fitness classes at the time, it was active and creative classes. So we had photography and drawing and cooking on there as well. And we obviously had all the fitness classes listed at the time.”
2020-06-29 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · ClassPass: Payal Kadakia · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, I mean, it's actually interesting because a lot of these people, by the way, had also followed my dance company trajectory. And I say that because the way I presented my dance company, the professionalism, the way I sold out shows, I think people knew I was doing that while I had another job. So these are my friends who had been able to watch me hustle, been once again able to watch me create something from nothing. And when I was like, hey, like, okay, Open Table is a billion dollars. I'm building a business that big. They were like, all right, sign me up. You know, that's really where it started.”
2020-06-29 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · ClassPass: Payal Kadakia · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“So, one of the early conversations when I was really getting feedback on the idea I was with one of my childhood friends, Sanjeev Sengavi. And he was an amazing dancer also when we were younger. He did martial arts. He became a banker and sort of stopped doing all these things that he loved. And when I told him about the idea, I remember waking up the next morning and he had texted me like a hundred times being like, hey, I want to give you money for this. Let me know how I can help and get involved. And that's sort of where it started. So it first started with him wanting to invest. And then little by little, as I quit my job and started working on it. And, you know, once again, I knew he was as passionate about being active, being fit, you know, staying in touch with your passions as I was. He was like, you know what, Pyle, like I want to quit and do this with you. And that's really how, you know, we were always a team, like growing up, we kind of did everything together. So that's how, you know, we decided to build this together.”
2020-06-29 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · ClassPass: Payal Kadakia · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“2011 in January, I decided I would quit. I write an email to all the executives and people I had worked with at Warner Music Group. And the vice chairman of the company, Michael Fleischer, he invites me up to his office and he wants to hear about my idea. And, you know, I'd probably interact with him two or three times throughout my experience, but he was really interested in hearing about a new idea. So I go up there, I start telling him about, you know, dabble at the time. And he was like, this is amazing. Like, I'm going to introduce you to someone who can, you know, who's running this tech starts program, David Tish. And he's like, and I want to invest money. So here's $10,000. Wow. Once again, like I'm kind of fascinated by the fact that, you know, I'm about to walk out, you know, or quit my job. And it's like the scariest day of my life. And I walked out with a $10,000 check on the day I quit.”
2020-06-29 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · ClassPass: Payal Kadakia · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“But I think what she had realized, I had been working for six years, I had sort of checked every box that I needed to for them. I think my mom almost got to the point where she was like, you can stop working. Like, you know, go do what makes you happy because it's happiness is as important. And that's when I kind of got this freedom to be able to sort of dream about what I wanted to do. I decided in January that I would quit. I sent an email”
2020-06-29 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · ClassPass: Payal Kadakia · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I hadn't quit my job, like you said. I mean, I wasn't fully there yet. And obviously, for me, getting my parents' blessing was actually a really important thing for me. I remember sitting down with them Thanksgiving of that year. So we're in 2010 still. And I was pretty like burnt out when it came to my job at work. And I remember just thinking like, oh, I don't want to go back into the office on Monday. And my mom looked at me and she goes, why don't you quit? And that was actually a very surprising thing to hear from someone like my mother who's, you know, as I said, immigrated here, wanted to make sure my sister and I were stable.”
2020-06-29 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · ClassPass: Payal Kadakia · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, so I'm still working for Warner. I start once again doing some research looking at these adjacent models. I start doing some a little bit of qualitative research with my friends. So I start telling them, hey, I want to build this idea, like an open table for classes, which, by the way, sounds pretty good, right? Anyone, everyone was like, that sounds great. I would do it. And I am, by the way, the name of the company at the time was called Dabble Now because that was what I thought the company would be. I thought it would be like a place where people could dabble in different classes. And I would just kind of tell them about the idea. People were really interested in me starting it.”
2020-06-29 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · ClassPass: Payal Kadakia · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And at the time, I was really obviously inspired by products like Open Table, Seamless Web, ZocDoc. Those were all a part of the offline to online movement that was going on. So that was the idea and OpenTable, I think, had just reached a billion dollars at the time. And so everyone knew there was a lot of scalability in a product like this. So that's sort of, for me, the market research I started doing in those models to see how I could build this for classes.”
2020-06-29 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · ClassPass: Payal Kadakia · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And by then, it's been two hours, and I've missed class, and I don't go that day. And that's when it hit me. I realized, oh my God, this is a disaster. This information is all over the place. What if technology could help people put this all in one place for them to be able to, you know, continue to do their passions and go to class? That was the initial moment for me.”
2020-06-29 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · ClassPass: Payal Kadakia · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“So I come back to New York, correct? So I take a red eye. I remember on Sunday night. And I remember thinking to myself, you know what, Pyle? Like, why don't you give yourself two weeks to think of an idea? And hey, if you think of an idea, maybe entrepreneurship is the right way. If not, okay, maybe it's time to look for another job in corporate America. So I'm studying ballet at the time. I was going to class, obviously, a ton. We weren't in active dance phase at the time, but I was obviously still training. So on the Tuesday after I get back, I get on my computer, I have my ballet clothes with me, I start looking for a new class to take. I end up with, you know, seven tabs open. I'm looking at the schedule. I'm looking at the teachers. I'm looking at the times. And it's all over the place, right? The formats are different. I'm kind of getting lost between, you know, the times and the subway I need to take.”
2020-06-29 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · ClassPass: Payal Kadakia · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“So, in the summer of 2010, I went out to San Francisco, I met a bunch of entrepreneurs because it was one of my friends' birthdays, one of my former MIT and Bain friends. And all her friends were building apps and ideas. And in 2010 in New York City, I could not count, you know, I didn't know that many entrepreneurs, right? Most of my friends were in finance banking or fashion. So I go and talk to them about these ideas. They're telling me about what they're building. I mean, some of them weren't even great ideas, but I remember thinking to them and asking them, I'm like, you do this full time. And they said yes. And I was, it was sort of this new idea for me. And it made me think about this life of entrepreneurship. And what if I could really blend, you know, my creativity with my business skills and build something as well?”
2020-06-29 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · ClassPass: Payal Kadakia · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Look, I wasn't building my dad's company for money, and all the girls dancing at the time weren't doing it for money either, right? We all had other jobs. We all had ways to make income. So we were really doing this to share our hearts. Until this day, I mean, my dance company is set up as a nonprofit. It is something actually that we do because we enjoy it. I think for me at that point in my life, I wasn't ready to fully scale my dance company. And I kind of really wanted to find a way to build, to bring my business side and everything I had sort of studied with my passion together. So I actually started thinking about building something new. And that's really when, you know, the seeds of starting a company like ClassPass started.”
2020-06-29 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · ClassPass: Payal Kadakia · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“It was a community based dance group in the sense of, you know, I think everyone through college, like every single college had an Indian dance troupe. So we all knew each other. When I started building this, you know, they were like, I'd love to do this. They missed dance, right? This is also the crux of so much of where ClassPass came from. They were missing dance. Everyone missed doing something in an activity that they loved so much. And so it was definitely the busy, one of the busiest times of my life, but also, you know, this is sort of where it started for me. And I realized what you can do if you hustle.”
2020-06-29 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · ClassPass: Payal Kadakia · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, so I was the, you know, I called myself the artistic director and executive director. Every second I wasn't working, you know, during my full-time job, I was either choreographing, rehearsing, you know, I was booking space. I was finding places for us to perform. I had 10 dancers, many of them, by the way, also like executives at huge companies working consulting. We all kind of had that dual dynamic. So we wouldn't have practiced until 8 p.m. at night. We would dance until 10, 10.30, go home, kind of do it all again the next day.”
2020-06-29 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · ClassPass: Payal Kadakia · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“So I kind of at least figured, hey, I'm taking a job in an industry without selling something I believed in, right? So that was sort of a way I think I convinced myself that it was the right place. And it was actually a really interesting time in the music industry because everything was moving from physical to digital. So I got to see like an entire transformation happen. Did I really know what I want? At that time, did I, was I really passionate about that job? No, but was it a means to an end? Yes.”
2020-06-29 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · ClassPass: Payal Kadakia · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“It didn't make it. It's okay, but that's fine. But it was one of those things where I would have these incredible sort of dance experiences happening while I was working. And I didn't like that I didn't have this predictable schedule. And so while most of my friends were going off to business school, I ended up taking this job at Warner Music Group in their digital strategy group.”
2020-06-29 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · ClassPass: Payal Kadakia · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yep, yep. So, you know, I think the first few years when I was working at Bain, I was able to sort of juggle going to dance practice after work and, you know, going to performances on the weekends. I have some interesting stories where one day I remember I was walking to work and there were tryouts for So You Think You Can Dance going on outside my door and I called in sick and decided to go audition. Like these were sort of the conflicts I was having in my life.”
2020-06-29 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · ClassPass: Payal Kadakia · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“But it sounds like this was really what you wanted to do because I guess you only lasted a ban only. You lasted a ban about three years and you took a new job actually that would allow you to focus on starting a dance company.”
2020-06-29 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · ClassPass: Payal Kadakia · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, that's exactly what I would have done, or even just like starting a studio or something. But I'm actually really glad I did it. And I've thought about this, like getting real world experience, and especially in a place like New York City, is so important. And so obviously, you know, I got real world experience working at Bain, but I also got to see how sort of the dance community and arts community worked because I was dancing and taking class through my first few years living in New York City too, which taught me so much about how, you know, other fields work as well. And I think I needed that hands-on experience. And I don't think I was ready at that point to, even though I kind of like believed in myself that I could do something. I didn't know what it was, nor did I actually realize how the world worked.”
2020-06-29 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · ClassPass: Payal Kadakia · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Absolutely. I mean, I used to choreograph big dances for our culture shows at MIT. And, you know, I think what was nice is I would bring my entire class together. We had a lot of Indian people at MIT. So some of them at the dances I would choreograph had four.”
2020-06-29 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · ClassPass: Payal Kadakia · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I think the way I danced that really captured people, I think, since I was younger, people would just like stop and watch me dance. And it was because, like I said, I danced from my heart. And I think whenever you see someone's entire being come alive and doing anything in their life, right? And I think I always talk about this is it was dance for me. I think it's music for other people. It's, you know, it's being active for others. And that was my home. And I think when you see someone come so in connection to a place where they belong, it makes everyone feel alive.”
2020-06-29 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · ClassPass: Payal Kadakia · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Stuck with it. And if it didn't exist, I created it. So even at MIT, there was no Indian dance troupe that existed on campus with the style of dance that, you know, I had done. So I created it in my second year of being at school. I put on shows there. It was my life. I think everyone, anyone who's known me, I mean, a lot of people obviously know me today as the founder of ClassPass, but before that, I mean, everyone's just like, Pyle is a dancer. And that's whose she was.”
2020-06-29 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · ClassPass: Payal Kadakia · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“So, well, I was a second daughter, and this idea of having dual identities, which I was just talking about, like I was Indian American, and I always really had this very analytical side to me, but I also had a very creative side to me. And that's really, I think, throughout my life, like the other sort of dual identity I had, which I always wanted to come together.”
2020-06-29 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · ClassPass: Payal Kadakia · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I would say education was a very important pillar of my childhood, getting good grades was sort of a non-negotiable. I had to work hard to get good grades, though. It wasn't, I don't, you know, I think there's people in the world who are sort of just like great at getting, you know, getting through school and didn't have to study and were just like ace the test. That was not me. I had to study. It was actually interesting. English and writing were just harder subjects for me, maybe because of my parents, you know, didn't always speak English in the house. But like math and science, it just was so was easy for me and I loved it. And I used to always even like think about how my life revolved around numbers and actually did my entire college application essay on how my life revolved around the number too.”
2020-06-29 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · ClassPass: Payal Kadakia · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, it's actually pretty interesting. I was pretty shy and quiet, and I think that was a dynamic of my family. Like my mom and my sister were both very loud, dominant personalities. It actually took me until I would say going to college where I started to realizing what a leader I was and how, you know, what my voice was and how to sort of take control of situations because I was the baby of my family. And even within all my cousins and everyone, like I was a baby. And I also, I know we're talking over this microphone, but I'm 411. And I was never very tall. I was always a small person. And so I had to really find a way to come out of that. And I started really realizing that once I went to college.”
2020-06-29 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · ClassPass: Payal Kadakia · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Exactly. I just didn't see the difference. I just thought it was okay. Well, like, I love doing this and I do this when I compete over the weekend. And even though the audience is filled with Indian people, why wouldn't it work in my school auditorium? And a little bit after I started dancing, I remember people started like booing and laughing. And I think I remember feeling really bad when my sister was sort of embarrassed of me when I came home and realizing that, oh, I am different. And I actually think that started this phase of my life that probably lasted a good six, seven years where I had my Indian life and I had my like American life. And I kept them very separate.”
2020-06-29 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · ClassPass: Payal Kadakia · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I remember exactly what I was wearing. I remember going onto the stage and, you know, I think at the time I didn't think my culture and my background was that big of an issue. And then I started doing this dance and it was what my dance future had taught me. And we had performed by the way, like at major places as a dance company, you know, and sort of an Indian community. But I didn't realize it wouldn't translate to my elementary school.”
2020-06-29 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · ClassPass: Payal Kadakia · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I performed at every family function or party. I would have to have like my cassette ready, my dance outfit ready, you know, and I think that that was really important for me to find a place where I felt alive. I felt like I could touch people. And I think when you're that young and you realize that you have the power to affect other people, it changes you at a very deep human level. And I think that's really what happened to me.”
2020-06-29 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · ClassPass: Payal Kadakia · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“So, in India, there were at that time, I mean, it's called Bollywood now, but it was called the Hindi film, Hindi films. And there were actresses like Madhuri Thikshit and Sridhavi, who were, you know, these unbelievable actresses that would dance in these movies. And to me, they were like goddesses. And they, you know, like emulated this power of expression and charisma that, you know, I think as an Indian girl, I would sit in my house and I literally would put the video on over and over and over again and try and emulate it. And I think for me, what I started realizing with Indian dances, it was this way for me to feel connected to where I came from, especially because I was around people who didn't look like me. And it also became this place where I felt really confident. I became this performer when I was very young. I remember since I was five.”
2020-06-29 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · ClassPass: Payal Kadakia · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT